


No Sleep

by zebruhh



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen, Horror, Monsters, Psychological, horror story, scary story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:20:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3575919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zebruhh/pseuds/zebruhh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dedicated to my roommate, Rebecca. And to sixpenceee for inspiring me. (Also, Skarjo, wherever you are, please take no offense, you inspired me too.)<br/>90% true story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This has not been beta read, and does not fall into any Fandom of sorts.

It was my roommate who introduced me to No Sleep stories.  
“Have you heard of it?” she had asked me as we sat in our beds on opposite sides of the room. We stared at each of our phones.  
“Nope.” I said, as I scrolled through my Tumblr dash.  
“Really? But I thought you liked horror stuff?”  
“Yeah? And?”  
“Don’t you ever go on Reddit?”  
“I thought that’s where all the fedoras and bronies trolled,” I said glancing up from my phone, “Wait, maybe that’s 4chan…I’ve never really been on either.”  
“No, dude, some really cool people use Reddit, you have no idea. No Sleep is like an archive for some of the scariest short stories.”  
“Any true stories? I’m a sucker for those.”  
“Oh, God I hope not. Tonight, during our pillow talk, I’ll read you one.”  
I was quiet for a while, then when her words sank in, I looked up at her smirking, “You’re gonna read aloud something called a ‘No Sleep’ before we try to sleep tonight?? Literally read it right now. Neither of us have any more classes for the day.”  
“Its daylight.”  
I sighed, “Rebecca, just close the blinds, it’ll be dark enough.”  
“Dude, you’re so right.” She climbed out from beneath her comforter and over to our windows by her bed. As usual, she was only wearing a t-shirt and panties. I never understood how she could walk around our room when there was both a bustling street and a hiker’s trail outside our building. Cars, students and the occasional animal (usually turkey or deer,) passed by with a ready gaze toward her. “Ready?” she asked.  
“Mhm,” I mumbled without looking up as I reblogged some Supernatural post. She didn’t say anything. I looked up to find her staring at me.  
“Ready now? I want your full attention.”  
“Dude, I’m busy, I’ll listen and reblog stuff at the same time”  
“Full attention,” she repeated, “or else I won’t know if you’re scared or not.”  
“Trust me, you’ll know when I’m scared. I’m a pussy. Just cause I like horror stuff doesn’t mean I can handle it.”  
“Zshenna.”  
I groaned, but set my phone down anyway, sitting up to listen more attentively.  
She breathed in, “Here we go. This is the top rated one, it’s called Autopilot by Skarjo.”

That was the first No Sleep I read. To be completely honest, it wasn’t my cup of tea. It seemed more like a story about human error than any of the paranormal monster stories I usually gravitate towards. I’m an old fashioned girl, I prefer the kind of stories about things that go bump in the night. I would soon regret this later.  
Nonetheless, it was really well written, and it piqued my interest in the online horror stories floating around the internet.  
I began to search them up on my own when I had free time between classes. I never seemed to read them at night, not only because I didn’t have the time, but because I knew that if I came across one that actually did scare me, I’d probably wet the bed.  
At first everything was fine. I started following sixpenceee on Tumblr, deciding a daily dose of creepy stuff would be good for me. I read the occasional good story, but for the most part, nothing actually made my skin crawl.  
I figured it was a good thing none of them were particularly scary, because sleep is precious to most college students, myself included, and I didn’t want to be kept up at night afraid of my own imagination. Still part of me wanted the scare factor, not some creepy story that made me go, “Oh, ew.”  
Eventually though, I started reading them at night, when I already couldn’t sleep. I was bored and needed something to do. As my roommate slept, I’d scroll through Reddit or Tumblr looking for something to read. Bad idea. I read a particularly scary one about a shape shifter that stared at you from across the room, and could almost see the shape morph out of what I knew were just piles of Rebecca’s clothing.  
I told her the next day. She laughed, “That’s what you get for reading No Sleeps. What did you expect?”  
Each night was a different form of terror. Some nights I thought I saw eyes blinking back at me, when it was only her phone light fading in and out. Another night I thought I heard what sounded like a body being dragged, but it was her faintly snoring from her allergies. What had to be the most frightening night, was when Rebecca spoke in her sleep. It was during midterm season, and I really needed the rest. From the other side of the room I heard her muffled voice whispering very fast and very low. I looked at my clock and saw it was 2am. She wasn’t on the phone or anything, she was fast asleep. 

“You look terrible,” she said the next morning, “Did you get ANY sleep, or are you just torturing yourself reading those stories?”  
“Actually, last night, you were the culprit to my lack of sleep. Did you know you sleep talk?”  
“Yeah, I told you last semester, apparently I sleep walk too. My sister told me some pretty wild stories about what I’ve said to her in my sleep. It gets worse when I’m stressed.”  
“I don’t remember you telling me that.”  
“I did! Ask Andrea, I sleep walk and talk.”  
“I’m not gonna ask your sister,” I began to chuckle, “Just let me get some sleep tonight, okay? It’s hard enough to get eight hours already, what with you speaking to Satan on the other side of the room,” I joked. She threw her shoe at me.  
“Stop, I wasn’t Satan whispering, quit it. Besides, I’ll be out late tonight studying in Doe Library, so you can catch up on your sleep then.”  
“You’re gonna leave me alone??”  
“If you’re afraid, leave the Christmas lights on!”

I crawled into bed early for once, 10pm, and immediately fell asleep, even with our Christmas lights on. I woke up later in the evening, though, and the lights were off. Rebecca must have turned them off when she got in. It was almost 3am and I could hear her mumbling from her side of the room. I knew it was just her, but I was really frightened. She must have been really stressed from her midterms. Her whispers were fast, and louder tonight, but not loud enough to hear what she was saying, as if anything she said would be coherent anyway. 

I got up early the next morning and left for an 8am lecture, without waking Rebecca, which wasn’t unusual. I knew she needed to sleep. It was about noon when I was back at the dorm. Rebecca was in our room, finishing her Bio1B homework, her notes and text book sprawled all over her neatly made bed. “What time did you get in last night?” I ask, slinging my purse onto my bed.  
“So late, dude, I was out until 5am. It was rough, but I’m finally caught up in phylogenetic systematics.”  
“….5am?”  
“Yep.”  
“But I heard you doing your satanic whispers again last night, way earlier than that.”  
“It was probably a dream, I’m not surprised your subconscious has finally latched on to your new-found paranoia. Remember your sex dream about Flynn from upstairs? Your subconscious likes to fuck with you.”  
“Stop, dude, I’m serious. I was awake. I heard you sleep talking.”  
“Maybe you thought it was earlier in the night, but it was actually later than you thought.” She could probably see how scared I was because she said next, “Okay… okay, chill. Tonight, I’ll be here. If I start sleep talking, wake me up, and I’ll sit up or something and show you I’m actually here.”

That night I read a No Sleep about having imaginary friends coming to life. I woke around 1am to Rebecca sleep talking. She wasn’t whispering anymore. She was making incomprehensible sounds, like some gibberish language only people from some dream land speak. “Rebecca,” I hissed at her in the dark, “Fucking shut up, you’re doing it again.” She stopped talking, and rose a hand to wave at me to go back to sleep. 

When I woke, my phone was blinking from a message I received last night. I swiped my phone unlocked, groggily. It was from Rebecca. “Sorry, bb, I slept over at friends last night. He didn’t want me to walk back to the dorm in the dark.”  
Suddenly wide awake, I looked over at her bed, it was still made from the day before. I had chills. I threw my phone in my purse, and ran to my first discussion. I didn’t have time to call Rebecca until 1, my classes were stacked. When I did, she picked up on the first ring, “Hey, I just got out of class what’s up?”  
“You didn’t come home last night?”  
“Didn’t you get my text? I slept at Ashwin’s, in Unit 2.”  
“You were there. You were sleep talking. You waved at me.” She was silent.  
“You saw me wave?”  
“You waved.”  
“I wasn’t there.”  
“Somebody was. Somebody was talking. Somebody waved at me.”  
“No. That had to be a dream, did you read any No Sleeps last night?”  
“Well yeah, but I don’t thin—”  
“Exactly, this is just your subconscious.”  
“You better fucking sleep here tonight.”  
“I can’t…My mom’s in town. We’re getting an airbnb in SF.”  
“Dude…”

I didn’t want to stay in my room that night. I was planning on leaving my dorm at 10pm, maybe to study at Doe. All the libraries are open pretty late, and at least that way I’d be productive. At 9, I started packing my textbooks and laptop into my bag, when I heard a ghostly high-pitched whistle. I spun around, looking over to Rebecca’s side of the room. Her window was opened a crack and the wind was pushing its way through. I calmed down, what if the noises I’ve been hearing had been coming from outside all along? I pulled down the blinds, the light from the streetlamps peeked through and cast ugly shadows on the pictures hung on her wall. I suddenly felt very stupid. Had I closed the window or just the blinds the night before? Fuck. I had scared myself last night. The noises and shadows had come from outside. I groaned. I’m such an idiot. Reading No Sleeps had caused me to find the horror in every little detail, letting my imagination run wild just as I had expected it would. I ran my fingers through my hair angrily. The stress from this whole scare left my body and I felt very tired. I sighed, still angry at myself. I unpacked my stuff and got into comfier clothes. I’ll just sleep here. Climbing under my covers, I glared at Rebecca’s bed. Tonight, I’d better get a lot of sleep.

I went to sleep angry, but like clockwork woke up again around 3. At first I thought that my body had grown accustomed to just waking up in the middle of slumber, but then I heard a low, guttural snarl from Rebecca’s side of our room. A deep voice growled incoherent, angry words, thick with malice, but loaded with power. I sat up, horrified. The room was illuminated with an eerie blue light. The window was closed, but the blinds were open. Light from the streetlamps outside bled into our room, casting a spectral ring of light around a dark, unearthly figure that was sitting on Rebecca’s bed.  
It was faced toward me, breathing hard, shaking ferociously. I was frozen in terror. This wasn’t Rebecca, she was out of town, this wasn’t coming from outside, it was real, it was angry, and it was staring right at me.


End file.
